Murder, racketeering trial of former N.J. prosecutor begins

January 22, 2013|Reuters

By Joseph Ax

NEWARK, N.J., Jan 22 (Reuters) - New Jersey attorney PaulBergrin facilitated a litany of crimes through his law firm,including drug trafficking, prostitution and the murder of anFBI informant, prosecutors said on Tuesday as his trial began inNewark federal court.

A former federal prosecutor and prominent defense lawyer,Bergrin, 57, faces charges that he orchestrated the 2004 murderof Kemo DeShawn McCray, an FBI informant and witness against oneof his clients, as well as 24 other counts ranging fromracketeering to conspiring to kill witnesses.

But Bergrin, who has represented rapper L'il Kim and U.S.soldiers accused of crimes in Iraq, said the government's caserests almost entirely on the testimony of career criminalsintent on reducing their sentences.

"You'll find in this case conclusively that you can't trustany of the witnesses against me," Bergrin, who is acting as hisown attorney, told the jury on Tuesday during opening arguments.

The witnesses include a number of Bergrin's formerassociates and clients who prosecutors acknowledge were activeparticipants in Bergrin's criminal enterprise.

The trial represents the U.S. Justice Department's secondattempt to prosecute Bergrin, dubbed "the baddest lawyer in thehistory of Jersey" by New York Magazine.

The first trial included only the McCray murder charges,after U.S. District Judge William Martini severed them from therest of the indictment.

McCray was gunned down in broad daylight on a Newark street,after prosecutors claim Bergrin told a client, "No Kemo, nocase," implying that McCray's death would help a gang associatebeat criminal charges. A jury deadlocked in November 2011 onwhether to convict Bergrin.

Since then, the case has traveled a labyrinthine legal path.

Last June, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals inPhiladelphia removed Martini from the case and ruled that he haderred in separating the McCray charges from the racketeeringcounts, which allege that all of Bergrin's crimes can be tied tothe criminal enterprise he ran out of his law practice.

PROSECUTORS TO PRESENT NEW EVIDENCE

With two dozen additional counts to prove, prosecutors planto introduce new evidence, including a recording of Bergrinallegedly telling a Chicago hit man to murder another witnessand make it look like a home invasion.

"It cannot under any circumstances look like a hit," Bergrinallegedly told a Latin Kings gang member secretly working withthe government, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gay.

But Bergrin said jurors would see that recording, when takenin context, for what it was: "bluffing" and "gamesmanship" inwhich Bergrin led the presumed hit man on after he realized theman had no intention of killing anyone.

In addition, prosecutors claim Bergrin was involved intrafficking hundreds of kilograms of cocaine, using his law firmto connect suppliers with distributors and allowing cocaine tobe stored at a restaurant he owned.

He is accused of tampering with witnesses, including whatGay described as the "brainwashing" of a 9-year-old girl so thatshe would lie about the brutal stabbing of her mother by herfather, a Bergrin client.

Bergrin also faces charges that he helped arrange for JasonItzler, who gained notoriety in the media for calling himselfthe "King of all Pimps," to receive a phony paycheck from hislaw firm so Itzler could convince the parole board to let himtravel to New York, where he ran a brothel.

"This case is about a lawyer who used his law license todisguise the fact that he was a drug dealer, a pimp and amurderer," Gay said.

Bergrin, however, said the jury would "be unable to separatefact from fiction" thanks to the unreliability of thegovernment's witnesses.